HE  SILVER  QUESTION 


FEW  EDITORIAL  EXTRACTS  FROM  NEW  YORK 
NEWSPAPERS  CONCERNING  THE 
FREE  COINAGE  OF  SILVER  AND 
KINDRED  SUBJECTS 


PUBLISHED  FOR  FREE  DISTRIBUTION  BY  THE 

MASON  &  HAMLIN  CO., 

'  136  FIFTH  AVE.,  NEW  YORK 

1896 


THE  SILVER  QUESTION. 


-+~+- 


Issue  in  Silrer  Pure. 


Th^  issue  of  the  day  will  be  better  un¬ 
derstood  if  we  drop  the  confusing  figures 
of  16|  to  1,  stop  talking  of  gold,  which 
neither  party  proposes  to  touch  directly, 
and  donsider  silver  alone. 

This  old  silver  dollar  contained  371J 
grain  s  of  silver.  During  the  fifty  years 
after  1834,  when  gold  became  the  single 
standard  of  the  United  States,  371| 
grains  of  silver  were  worth  more  than  a 
dollafc.  and  hence  no  silver  was  coined, 
silver  was  “demonetized”  in 
a  coined  dollar  of  it  was  worth 
As  no  silver  was  being  coined 
its  demonetization,  done  in  full 
light'-  of  long  and  open  discussion,  was 
the  mere  repealing  of  an  obsolete  law. 
To-d  ay,  owing  mainly  to  the  enormous 
incre  ase  in  silver  production,  871£  grains 
are  worth  only  fifty-three  cents,  and  the 
Bry/an  issue  is  to  give  men  the  right  to 
call  tjhis  fifty-three  cents’  worth  of  silver 
a  do!  lar.  That  is  square  and  bare  repu¬ 
diation . 

would  be  equally  proper,  equally 


Whe 
1873 
$1.0 
thenj, 


just,  and  equally  honest  to  call  fifty- 
three  cents  worth  of  copper  a  dollar. 

The  Bryan  men  keep  themselves  in 
countenance  with  the  argument  that  371£ 
grains  of  silver  constituted  a  dollar  years 
ago,  and  copper  never  did.  Then  they 
undertake  to  give  an  air  of  sanctity  to 
their  piratical  schemes  by  inflammatory 
attacks  on  gold .  Their  one  hope  is  so  to 
excite  a  majority  of  the  public  with  a 
sense  of  hatred  against  the  rich  and  the 
financial  system  under  which  people  have 
prospered  that  they  will  crazily  strike  at 
it,  even  to  the  paralysis  or  wreck  of  indus¬ 
try  in  general. — From  the  New  York 
Sun. 


Bogota,  June  17. 
To  the  Editor  of  the  World : 


It 


As  the  money  question  seems  to  be  the 
important  question  in  the  present  politi¬ 
cal  contest  in  the  United  States,  I 
thought  it  might  be  of  interest  to  the 
many  readers  of  The  World  to  know 
what  effect  silver  legislation  has  had  upon 
the  people  of  Colombia. 


J 


? 


35041 


Twenty  years  ago,  in  1876,  gold  and 
silver  were  coined  in  the  mints  of  Co¬ 
lombia,  both  being  a  legal  tender  for  all 
debts,  and  at  that  time,  owing  to  the 
scarcity  of  the  white  metal  silver  was 
at  a  premium  over  gold  of  about  three 
per  cent. 

About  1880  gold  was  at  a  premium,  be¬ 
cause  the  imports  exceeded  the  exports, 
and  as  the  balance  had  to  be  paid  in 
gold  it  required  a  small  premium  to  get 
the  gold  for  the  purpose.  Up  to  1885  the 
Government  continued  to  coin  gold  and 
silver,  and  at  that  time  gold  was  at  a 
premium  over  silver  of  about  20  per  cent. 

In  1885  Congress  passed  a  law  that 
made  paper  money  a  legal  tender  for  all 
debts,  the  paper  to  be  payable  in  GOLD 
OR  SILVER  AT  THE  OPTION  OF 
THE  GOVERNMENT— this  being  an 
attempt  to  make  silver  at  a  par  with 
gold. 

GOLD  AT  190  PER  CENT.  PREMIUM. 

This  was  an  impossibility,  for  at  once 
the  gold  all  went  out  of  the  country,  and 
the  Government  was  on  a  silver  basis  m 
spite  of  its  efforts  by  legislation  to  keep 
gold  and  silver  at  a  parity.  From  that 
time  to  this  there  has  been  no  gold  in 
circulation  in  Colombia. 

The  effect  of  this  was  to  raise  the  pre¬ 
mium  on  gold  from  20  per  cent,  in  1885 
to  190  per  cent  in  1895. 

At  the  present  time  (June  17)  exchange 
on  New  York  is  140,  the  price  of  ex¬ 
change  depending  wholly  upon  the  num¬ 
ber  of  drafts  upon  the  market  and  the 
demand  for  them.  As  the  coffee  crop 
is  being  shipped  at  this  time,  and  the 
merchants  for  certain  reasons  are  not 
importing  largely,  the  price  of  exchange 
is  low. 

SILVER  ALL  GOES  TO  PANAMA. 

In  the  Department  of  Panama  paper 


money  is  not  used,  silver  being  tle  ODqy  • 
medium  of  circulation,  the  result  being 
that  silver  in  the  other  Departments  has 
entirely  gone  out  of  circulation  anq 
paper  is  the  only  money  used. 

If  one  goes  to  market  in  Bog(,fa  anq 
offers  silver  for  his  dinner  it  is  r3fuse(p 
As  exchange  is  lower  in  Panama  (ban  in 
other  parts  of  1  the  country,  spectators 
buy  all  the  silver  they  can  find  at  a  pre_ 
mium  of  from  5  to  10  per  cent,  anq  Send 
it  to  Panama  and  make  a  profit.  ]ST0w 
to  show  the  effect  of  this  upon  the  npnnlp  f 
of  Colombia,  I  will  give  certain  facts 
that  are  well  authenticated. 


COST  OF  LIVING  MORE  THAN  DOUBLED> 

In  1885,  when  gold  was  at  a  prelum 
of  20  per  cent.,  wages  of  working^n  on 
the  plains  of  Bogota  were  40  cen^s  per 
day,  and  in  the  hot  country  60  cenfg  a 
day.  At  the  present  time  wages  fbre  go 
and  90  cents  respectively,  an  advance 
of  50  per  cent.  All  provisions  have  fn- 
creased  in  cost  about  200  per"  cent. 
Meats  at  that  time  were  selling  fo*.  from 
12  to  15  cents  per  pound ;  at  the  present 
time  they  sell  for  40  and  50  cents,  f 

House  rents  have  increased  froin  iQO 
to  200  per  cent.  Small  tenements^  sucb 
as  poor  people  occupy,  could  be  hraq 
1885  for  $8  a  month;  now  the  sameqene_ 
ments  bring  $8.  In  1884  and  188:5  the 
Protestant  minister  at  Bogota  occupjeq  a 
house  for  which  he  paid  $50amonfb* 
at  the  present  time  the  same  house  lLino4 
$200  a  month.  if  ® 

POORER  GOODS  THE  RULE. 

In  1 885  table  board  could  be  had  ^t  the 
best  hotels  for  $1  a  day;  now  it  is  j  a 
day ;  and  the  proprietors  all  say  thl»rS  fs 
much  less  money  in  the  business  V£an 
when  they  received  $1.  Wearing  al  iParei 
has  not  increased  in  price  in  prop(  ^on 


* 


2 


to  provisions,  but  this  is  because  the 
people  are  too  poor  to  buy  the  goods 
they  were  in  the  habit  of  wearing  be¬ 
fore,  and  the  merchants  have  placed 
upon  the  market  the  poorest  quality  of 
goods,  made  in  Europe  for  the  market. 
The  reason  that  the !  merchants  give  for 
^  not  buying  more  goods  in  the  United 
States  is  that  the  goods  .are  too  good 
and  the  people  cannot  afford  to  buy 
*  them . 

It  seems  to  me  that  if  the  workingmen 
r*  of  the  United  States  will  study  this  ob¬ 
ject  lesson  they  will  readily  see  that 
what  they  want  is  an  honest  dollar  that 
will  buy  as  much  in  the  markets  abroad 
as  the  dollar  of  any  other  nation. 

MUST  PAY  TWO  DOLLARS  FOR  ONE. 

If  silver  is  coined  in  the  United  States 
at  the  rate  of  16  to  1,  while  the  gold  in  a 
gold  dollar  is  worth  100  cents  in  any 
country  in  the  world,  and  the  silver  in 
a  silver  dollar  is  only  worth  fifty  cents,  is 
it  not  plain  that  the  experience  of  Co¬ 
lombia,  and  in  fact  all  South  American 
countries  where  it  has  been  tried  will  be 
the  experience  of  the  United  States  ? 

The  gold  will  all  leave  the  country,  and 
it  will  require  two  dollars  of  silver  to 
buy  one  dollar’s  worth  of  goods  in  the 
markets  of  the  world,  where  gold  is  the 
standard . 

The  next  question  is,  will  the  wages 
of  labor  be  increased  in  proportion  to 
the  increase  of  the  cost  of  living  ?  The 
price  of  labor  will  always  be  governed  by 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  while  the 
cost  of  living  will  be  governed  by  the 
value  of  the.  dollar  that  the  laborer  re¬ 
ceives  for  his  toil. 

;'V  \  t* 

FREE  SILVER  MEANS  POVERTY. 

Sjilver  legislation  in  every  country 


where  an  effort  has  been  made  to  make 
a  silver  dollar  equal  to  a  gold  dollar  has 
*  resulted  in  poverty  to  the*  man  who  la¬ 
bors,  and  the  attempt  in  the  United 
States  can  but  give  the  same  results. 

Three  years  in  this  country  has  given 
me  some  practical  knowledge  of  the  ef¬ 
fects  of  a  silver  and  paper  currency,  and 
I  send  you  the  above  facts,  as  they  are 
well  known  to  the  people ’here. 

luthur  f.  mckinney, 

United  States  Minister. 
— From  the  New  York  World. 


SILVER  TALK. 


Between  a  Farmer  and  a  Trades¬ 
man. 


Farmer. — Glad  to  meet  you,  friend, 
for  I’ve  been  wanting  to  ask  why  you 
and  so  many  in  your  line  of  business  are 
not  with  us  on  this  16  to  1  question. 
Storekeepers  make  their  living  out  of 
the  farmers,  and  it  seems  to  me  that 
what’s  good  for  us  ought  to  be  just  as 
good  for  them.  As  I  understand  this 
16  to  1  argument,  it  means  that  we  are 
to  have  16  times  as  many  silver  dollars 
as  we  have  gold  dollars;  and  just  think 
what  that  amounts  to.  The  editors  tell 
us  that  the  United  States  has  more  than 
600  millions  of  dollars  of  gold ;  and,  mul¬ 
tiplying  that  at  the  rate  of  16  to  1,  we 
should  get  by  this  plan  10,000  millions  of 
silver  dollars,  which  would  be  an  in¬ 
crease  of  9,500  millions  over  our  present 


3 


circulaton  of  silver  coin.  Think  what  a 
stock  of  money  that  would  give  us.  It 
would  make  ours  the  richest  country,  and 
give  us  the  biggest  circulation  of  money 
in  the  world.  Talk  of  “booms”;  this 
would  give  us  the  liveliest  ever  seen.  I 
should  like  to  know  why  you  should’nt 
be  as  much  benefited  by  this  increase  of 
trade  as  we  farmers  would  by  the 
doubling  of  the  prices  of  all  we  raise. 

Tradesman. — Will  you  explain  to  me 
why  the  silver  leaders  have  allowed  you 
and  millions  more  of  their  innocent  dis¬ 
ciples  to  get  into  your  heads  such  silly 
notions  about  the  meaning  of  this  16  to 
1  ?  They  print  the  motto  on  their  ban¬ 
ners,  and  you  all  marshal  as  proudly  as 
if  you  understood  it ;  but,  to  this  day. 
they  have  failed  to  tell  you  what  it  really 
means.  Each  dupe  is  left  to  put  his  own 
interpretation  on  the  mysterious  pap- 
words,  and  not  one  in  a  hundred  of  your 
crowd  knows  the  true  meaning  of  the 
thing  you  are  making  so  much  noise 
about.  Now  “  Sixteen  to  One  ”  means 
no  more  and  no  less  than  that  the  silver 
dollar  shall  continue  to  be  what  it  now  is 
— sixteen  times  the  weight  of  the  gold 
dollar.  I  should  like  you  to  explain 
what  great  benefit  there  is  in  that,  either 
to  the  farmer  or  anybody  else.  The  16 
to  1  dollar  has  only  a  fraction  more  than 
50  cents  worth  of  silver  in  it.  If  your 
leaders  had  proposed  to  put  into  a  real 
dollar’s  worth  of  silver,  by  making  its 
weight  32  times  that  of  a  gold  dollar, 
then  they  could  boast  that  they  were 
providing  for  you  a  true  and  honest  dol¬ 
lar.  But  their  plan  is  to  mint  a  dollar 
containing  only  50  cents  worth  of  silver, 
and  to  compel  you  by  law  to  accept  it  in 
payment  for  your  products.  Do  you 
consider  that  an  honest  and  fair  exercise 
of  the  power  to  make  law  ? 

Farmer. — You  tell  me  the  present  dol¬ 


lar  contains  only  50  cents  worth  of  silver, 
which  is  true,  and  yet,  as  you  know,  it  is 
just  as  good  as  the  gold  dollar  for  paying 
debts.  Why  should’nt  ik  continue  as 
good  as  gold  ? 

Tradesman. — I  will  tell  you  why.  In 
this  country  the  silver  dollar  passes  at  the 
same  value  s^the  gold  one,  because  the 
law  has  pledged  the  Government  to  keep 
the  value  of  the  two  kinds  of  dollars 
equal.  .The  silver  dollar  is  thus  backed 
by  the  credit  of  the  Government,  and  its 
value  may  be  said  to  be  made  up  of  one 
half  silver  and  the  other  half  national 
credit.  With  the  present  amount  of  sil¬ 
ver  in  circulation,  the  Government  has  so 
far  been  able  to  keep  its  promise  to  sup¬ 
port  the  value  of  the  silver  dollar.  But 
it  cannot  make  that  engagement  good 
for  an  unlimited  circulation  of  silver  dol¬ 
lars,  such  as  the  silver  leaders  propose  to 
issue.  There  is  a  limit  to  the  credit  of 
the  Government,  and  a  still  closer  limit 
to  the  extent  to  which  it  should  be 
strained.  The  large  amount  of  gold  we 
have  had  to  borrow  for  the  last  two 
years  shows  that  we  are  already  danger¬ 
ously  near  to  the  point  at  which  the 
Treasury  might  lose  its  ability  to  keep 
silver  circulating  at  the  same  value  as 
gold.  There  is  great  danger  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  being  unable  to  keep  this  pledge 
unless  the  stock  of  gold  is  much  larger 
than  that  of  silver;  and,  if  the  unlimited 
coinage  of  silver  were  permitted,  its 
value  would  immediately  fall,  gold  would 
go  to  a  premium  and  cease  to  circulate 
and  must  go  to  other  countries.  This  is 
the  invariable  rule  in  all  such  cases. 
There  are  other  nations  besides  the  United 
States  in  which  silver  is  kept  on  an  equal¬ 
ity  with  gold  for  home  payments#but, 
in  order  to  keep  their  stock  of  gold  con¬ 
siderably  above  that  of  silver,  they  have 
long  since  stopped  the  coinage  of  legal 
tender  silver,  which  is  the  simple  and 


safe  policy  we  sound-money  advocates 
propose  to  enforce.  Just  look  at  this 
list  of  the  stock  of  gold  and  of  legal  ten¬ 
der  silver  held  by  the  leading  countries 
of  Europe :  » 


Gold.  Silver. 

Prance . $825,000,000  $434,000,000 

Germany . .  625,000,000  .  105,000,000 

Italy . .’  ..  96  000.000  10,000,000 

Austro-Hungary  . . .  140,000,000  81,000,000 

Russia  . .  460,000,000  48,000,000 

Spain .  40,000,000  126,000,000 


Total . $3,186,000,000  $804,000,000 


You  will  see  that  these  six  countries 
have  nearly  three  dollars  in  gold  to  one 
in  silver,  and  yet  they  think  it  unsafe  to 
make  any  further  additions  to  their  issue 
of  silver  money.  In  our  own  country, 
the  stock  of  silver  coin  and  bullion  equals 
the  stock  of  gold;  and  yet  your  silver 
leaders  propose  to  increase  the  coinage  of 
silver  without  limit,  using  both  the  home 
product  and  whatever  may  come  from 
other  countries.  Do  you  think  it  wise  to 
undertake  such  a  revolution  in  our  money 
system  in  opposition  to  the  judgment, 
the  experience  and  the  fixed  policy  of  the 
most  civilized  nations  of  the  world  ?  Do 
you  think  it  safe  or  prudent  for  you  far¬ 
mers,  as  users  of  money,  to  leave  it  en¬ 
tirely  to  the  interested  producers  of  the 
metal  to  dictate  what  shall  be  done  in 
this  matter  ?  Have  you  any  sufficient 
reason  for  believing  that  the  Silver  Kings 
are  above  suspicion  of  using  your  vote 
to  increase  the  market  for  their  mining 
products?  Don’t  you  think  there  is 
reasonable  ground  for  distrusting  their 
motive? 

Farmer. — I  confess  I’ve  been  so  im¬ 
pressed  with  the  promises  of  more  cir¬ 
culation  that  our  leaders  have  held  out. 
that**  have  not  cared  to  trouble  myself 
aboutji  where  their  interest  in  the  plan 
comes  in. 


Tradesman. — That  is  what  I  supposed ; 
but  it  may  be  worth  your  while  to  look 
into  this  side  of  the  subject  more  closely. 
Just  see  what  this  matter  of  unlimited 
coinage  means  for  the  Silver  Kings.  At 
present,  they  sell  their  silver  at  the  rate 
of  70  cents  an  ounce.  An  ounce  equals 
the  weight  of  fine  silver  contained  in  a 
dollar  and  about  30  per  cent  more ;  so 
that  if  the  miner  could  get  his  metal 
coined  by  the  Government  for  his  own 
account,  the  mint  would  turn  over  to 
him  nearly  $1.30  of  coin  for  every  ounce 
of  silver  he  deposited,  thus  making  a 
profit  of  60  cents  an  ounce  over  and 
above  what  he  gets  when  the  Treasury 
buys  and  coins  the  silver  on  its  own 
account,  as  it  has  done  hitherto.  The 
profit  made  by  the  Treasury  on  coining- 
silver  has  hitherto  gone  to  the  public 
Treasury,  and  the  whole  country  has  had  v 
the  benefit;  but  your  silver  leaders 
would  have  it  go  to  them ;  and  that,  at 
the  present  price  of  silver  and  with  a 
home  product  of  50,000,000  ounces  as  at 
present,  would  bring.them  in  $65  000,000 
for  their  year's  product,  instead  of  the 
$35,000,000  which  they  are  now  getting 
for  it.  Do  you  suppose  this  fact  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  mine  owners 
being  advocates  of  free  coinage?  Now, 
they  can  afford  to  produce  silver  at  70 
cents  an  ounce ;  they  have  persuaded  you 
farmers  to  vote  for  a  scheme  that  would 
yield  them  $1.30.  Of  course,  they  are 
strictly  silent  about  this  motive,  and 
tell  you  that  as  the  prioes  of  your  pro¬ 
duce  have  fallen  because  the  coinage  of 
silver  has  been  stopped,  therefore  free 
coinage  is  necessary  to  protect  the  far¬ 
mer. 

Farmer— Yes;  and  that  is  just  where 
they  are  right,  as  nobody  can  deny ;  for 
is  not  wheat  selling  for  30  to  40  cents  a 
bushel  less  than  it  did  a  few  years  ago? 

Tradesman. — I  don’t  in  any  measure 


dispute  the  fact  of  the  fall  in  prices. 
What  I  do  deny  is  that  the  fall  in  wheat 
and  other  farm  products  is  due  to  the 
fall  in  the  value  of  silver,  or  the  discon¬ 
tinuance  of  its  coinage.  It  is  true,  the 
two  things  occurred  at  the  saihe  time ; 
but  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  the 
one  was  the  cause  of  the  other.  Other 
things  happened  within  the  same  time, 
which  have  had  an  effect  on  prices  that 
no  man  of  candid  sense  will  question. 
There  has  been  an  enormous  increase  in 
the  wheat  crops  of  the  world  within  late 
years.  Argentina.  Chili,  Russia,  India, 
Australia  and  Algeria  have  made  im- 
mence  additions  to  the  world’s  yearly 
supply.  The  introduction  of  steamships 
and  railroads  has  cheapened  the  cost  of 
transportation  on  both  land  and  ocean, 
which  has  naturally  tended  to  reduce 
prices,  and  without  correspondingly  hurt¬ 
ing  the  farmer.  And  you  must  remem¬ 
ber  that  articles  of  food,  and  especially 
wheat,  are  much  more  sensitive  to  in¬ 
creases  of  supply  than  most  other  arti¬ 
cles.  On  most  articles,  a  decline  in  their 
price  increases  the  demand  for  them, 
which  checks  the  downward  tendency.. 
But  human  stomachs  can  take  only  a 
certain  quantity  of  bread;  and,  when 
the  supply  exceeds  the  limit,  there  is  no 
relief  from  increase  of  demand ;  and  the 
surplus  has  therefore  an  exceptionally 
depressing  effect  upon  prices.  Besides 
this  cause,  farm  products  have  suffered , 
in  sympathy  with  all  others,  from  the 
doubling  of  the  world’s  products  conse¬ 
quent  upon  the  introduction  of  steam 
and  machinery  and  labor-saving  contri¬ 
vances.  This  change  in  the  costs  of  pro¬ 
duction  has  been  attended  by  a  decline 
in  general  prices  averaging  fully  30  per 
cent  within  the  past  generation.  It  is  in 
accordance  with  the  inevitable  working 
of  the  natural  laws  of  trade  that  these 
causes  should  produce  such  effects  as  we 
see  in  the  universal  fall  of  prices  and  es¬ 


pecially  of  farm  products.  There  is 
therefore  no  occasion  to  lug  in  the  fanci¬ 
ful  theory  that  the  cheapness  about 
which  there  is  so  much  vague  complaint 
has  been  caused  by  a  dearth  of  silver 
money. — From  the  New  York  Journal  of 
Commerce ,  July  28th ,  1896 


The  Real  Cause  of  Low  Prices. 


One  of  the  principal  stock  arguments 
of  the  advocates  of  free  silver  coinage  is 
that  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  1873 
is  responsible  for  a  steady  decline  in  the 
prices  of  commodities  since  that  time, 
and  consequently  the  restoration  of  sil¬ 
ver  coinage  will  cause  an  appreciation  of 
prices.  To  quote  from  the  apostles  of 
free  silver  coinage : 

“The  full  restoration  of  silver  in  this 
country  is  demanded  *  *  *  because 

even  both  gold  and  silver,  linked  to¬ 
gether  as  full  legal  tender  money,  would 
not  maintain  prices  at  a  greater  level 
than  would  be  necessary  to  guarantee 
profit  to  productive  enterprises  or  secure 
prosperity  to  our  country.  *  *  * 

This  scarcity  of  gold  is  shown  by  the 
steady  decline  of  all  commodities  and 
property  since  the  demonetization  in 
1873  — R-  P.  Bland,  in  the  Journal . 
June  30, 1896. 

“But  they  (the  bimetallists)  *  *  * 
are  agreed  that  only  a  prompt  return  to 
bimetallism  can  check  the  appreciation 
of  gold  and  stop  the  disastrous  fall  in  | 
prices.” — Wharton  Barker,  in  the  Jour¬ 
nal,  July  1,  1896 . 

‘  ‘Disaster  has  come  year  by  year  under 
the  single  gold  standard.  "With  falling 

.  -  .1, 

I 


prices  over  the  world  investment  and  en¬ 
terprise  have  been  paralyzed.” — 0.6. 
Vest,  in  the  Journal,  July  3,  1896. 

To  state  it  mildly,  it  is  simply  an  as¬ 
sumption  that  the  demonetization  of  sil¬ 
ver  is  responsible  for  falling  prices.  How 
do  these  gentlemen  know  that  one  is 
cause  and  the  other  effect?  How  do 
they  know  that  the  two  are  not  simply 
coincident?  Before  they  undertake  to 
launch  this  country  upon  a  cause  of  the 
most  doubtful  experiments,  leading,  as 
the  most  experienced  financiers  believe, 
to  certain  and  terrible  disaster,  they 
should  offer  something  more  than  as¬ 
sumptions  and  theories  as  the  basis  of 
their  plan.  If  they  are  wrong  in  their 
assumption,  the  only  possible  justifica¬ 
tion  for  a  trial  of  their  plan  is  swept 
away :  That  their  assumption  or  theory 
is  absolutely  and  radically  wrong  is  ap¬ 
parent  to  every  reasoning  mind,  and  is 
the  teaching  of  all  experience.  The 
price  of  any  article  or  commodity  is 
fixed  simply  and  solely  by  the  propor¬ 
tions  of  such  articles  produced  and  con¬ 
sumed — in  other  words,  by  supply  and 
demand.  This  is  an  axiom  so  plain  and 
indisputable  that  it  seems  incredible  that 
any  sensible  man  can  be  found  who  will 
believe  that  prices  can  be  fixed  in  any 
other  way.  If  in  any  year  the  entire 
world  produces  25  per  cent  more  wheat 
than  the  entire  world  consumes,  the 
price  will  fall  and  the  producers  of 
wheat  will  have  to  exchange  their  pro¬ 
duct  for  a  proportionally  smaller  amount 
of  other  commodities;  if  in  any  given 
year  the  entire  world  produces  25  per 
"cent  less  wheat  than  the  entire  world 
consumes,  the  price  will  rise,  and  the 
producers  of  wheat  will  be  able  to  ex¬ 
change  their  product  for  a  proportion- 
*  ally  larger  quantity  of  other  commodi¬ 
ties,  and  these  results  will  follow  inevi- 
-  tably,  whether  the  United  States  mone¬ 
tary  system  is  the  single  gold  standard 


or  the  single  silver  standard  or  bimet¬ 
allic. 

Bringing  experience  to  demonstrate 
the  truth  of  this  principle,  let  us  take  ' 
cotton  as  an  illustration. 

In  1890,  compared  with  1870,  the  in¬ 
crease  in  cotton  production  in  the  United 
States  was  131  per  cent;  the  increase  of 
population  in  the  same  time  was  63 
per  cent.  It  is  generally  conceded  that 
the  increase  in  population  in  the  United 
States  has  been  more  rapid  than  the  gen¬ 
eral  average  increase  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  and  it  is  therefore  evident  that 
the  production  of  cotton  has  far  out¬ 
stripped  the  demand  and  fully  accounts 
for  the  fall  in  prices,  from  23.98  cents 
per  pound  in  1870  to  11.07  cents  per 
pound  in  1890. 

Take  another  illustration  from  experi¬ 
ence — bicycles.  The  bottom  seems  to  be 
dropped  out  of  the  market ;  wheels  can 
be  bought  to-day  for  about  one-half  the 
price  which  was  charged  for  the  same 
grade  of  wheels  a  year  ago.  What  is 
the  cause?  Simply  that  so  many  people 
rushed  into  the  business  of  making  them 
that  the  market  is  glutted  and  the  in¬ 
evitable  result,  a  break  in  prices,  has 
followed. 

Will  any  of  our  free  silver  friends  be 
bold  enough  to  contend  that  the  single 
gold  standard  is  responsible  for  the  fall 
in  prices  of  bicycles?  It  is  just  as  much 
responsible  for  that  as  for  the  fall  in 
prices  of  wheat,  or  cotton,  or  pig  iron, 
and  no  more  so.  The  principle  is  the 
same  in  either  case. 

The  mistake  the  silverites  make  is  in 
regarding  money  (gold  or  silver)  as 
wealth,  instead  of  regarding  it  as  what 
it  is,  viz.,  the  representative  of  wealth. 
The  farmer  in  Dakota  who  sells  4,000 
bushels  of  wheat  for  1,000  gold  dollars 
is  just  as  well  off  as  the  farmer  in  Ar¬ 
gentina  who  sells  4,000  bushels  for  2,000 
silver  dollars.  One  can  get  just  as  much 


of  the  necessaries  of  life  in  exchange  for 
his  wheat  as  the  other,  provided  other 
conditions  are  equal.  If  the  Dakota 
farmer  received  his  pay  in  silver  dollars 
he  would  find  that  he  would  have  to 
pay  out  two  dollars  every  time  where 
now  he  pays  out  one.  So  where  would 
he  be  bettered  by  free  silver?  The 
Western  farmer  seems  to  have  gotten  it 
into  his  head  that  free  silver  coinage 
would  make  money  “cheap”  and  that  by 
some  unexplained  process  he  could  get 
and  hold  on  to  a  great  deal  more  of  it 
than  he  can  now;  but  he  forgets  that 
his  wealth  must  be  produced  from  his 
farm  and  weather  money  is  “cheap”  or 
“dear,  ”  a  certain  quantity  of  farm  pro¬ 
duce  can  be  exchanged  in  any  given 
year  only  for  a  certain  amount  of  the 
necessaries  and  luxuries  of  life. 

If  these  considerations  were  brought 
forcibly  home  to  the  deluded  farmers  of 
the  West,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  intel¬ 
ligent  men  could  continue  to  look-  to  free 
silver  as  the  “cure  all”  for  their  hard 
conditions.  JAS.  W.  COOKE. — From 
the  New  York  World. 


The  Crime  of  1873* 


Less  is  said  at  present  about  the  so- 
called  ‘  ‘crime  of  1873”  than  there  was  a 
few  years  ago,  but  it  is  still  occasionally 
denounced  by  ill-informed  silverites,  and 
therefore  it  'may  be  useful  to  set  forth 
the  facts  relating  to  it. 

The  first  coinage  act  passed  by  Con¬ 
gress  became  a  law  in  1792.  In  subse¬ 
quent  years  this  act  was  repeatedly 
amended,  until  in  1873  a  dozen  or  more 
acts  on  the  subject  were  on  the  statute 


book.  To  consolidate  and  systematize 
them  the  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  Coinage,  Weights 
and  Measures  prepared  a  comprehensive 
bill,  which  was  reported  to  the  House  by 
the  Hon.  W.  D.  Kelly  on  Jan.  9,  1872, 
debated  at  that  session,  laid  over  for  a 
year,  and  finally  passed  Feb.  12,  1873.  A 
This  act,  now  known  as  “the  Mint  act  of 
1873,”  dropped  as  obsolete  from  the  list 
of  coins  of  the  United  States  the  silver 
dollar  of  412|  grains,  and,  consequently  r'„ 
took  from  private  owners  of  silver  bullion 
the  privilege  which  they  previously  en¬ 
joyed,  of  having  their  bullion  coined  into 
dollars  in  unlimited  quantities  and  free 
of  expense  except  for  refining  and  al¬ 
loying  the  metal  This  is  what  is  called 
the  “crime”  of  1873. 

It  is  a  notorious  fact  that,  in  1873,  the 
privilege  of  having  silver  bullion  coined 
into  dollars,  as  given  by  the  earlier  Mint 
acts,  was  of  no  value  whatever,  and  had 
not  been  for  years.  The  silver  in  a  silver 
dollar  was  worth  more  than  a  dollar,  so 
that  coining  it  would  have  resulted  in  a 
loss.  Besides,  we  were  not  then  using 
either  silver  or  gold  as  money,  but  green¬ 
backs  exclusively,  and  the  resumption  of 
specie  payments  was  not  even  proposed 
until  1875,  or  two  years  later.  Conse¬ 
quently  nobody,  either  in  the  House  or 
in  the  Senate,  paid  any  attention  to  the 
dropping  of  silver  dollars  from  the  pro¬ 
visions  of  the  act,  and  it  was  not  dis¬ 
cussed  in  debate. 

An  absurd  story  was  for  a  time  cur¬ 
rent  that  this  suppression  of  the  silver 
dollar  was  procured  by  Mr.  Ernest  Seyd 
of  London,  as  the  agent  of  British  bank¬ 
ers.  and  that  he  expended  $590,000  in 
bribes  for  the  purpose.  The  refutation 
of  this  story  speedily  came  from  Mr. 
Seyd’s  son,  who  testified  that  his  father  h 
had  not  been  in  this  country  sinqg  1856, 
and  a  reference  to  the  letter  book  of  his 
firm  showed  that  he  was  in  London  con- 


8 


t  . 


I;. 


tinuously  from  October,  1872,  to  March, 
1873.  Moreover,  a  letter  is  extant, 
written  by  Mr.  Seyd  to  Mr.  Hooper  of 
Massachusetts  in  1872,  declaring  him¬ 
self  in  favor  of  retaining  the  silver  dol¬ 
lar  as  one  of  our  coins. 

1  ^  A  full  account  of  the  preparation  and 
passage  of  the  Mint  act  of  1873  will  be 
found  in  Prof.  Laughlin’s  “History  of 
Bimetallism  in  the  United  States,”  chap¬ 
ter  VII.,  and  to  that  book  we  refer  read- 
J  ers-who  desire  fuller  information  on  the 
subject. — From  the  Neiv  York  Sun. 

-i*  -M  .  >  .  v  ■  . .  '  .  *  • 


The  Crime  of  1873. 


It  is  probably  useless  to  try  to  cor¬ 
rect  the  impression  fixed  in  the  minds  of 
free-silver  advocates  that  a  “crime”  was 
committed  by  the  “surreptitious  de¬ 
monetization  of  silver  in  1873.”  Yet,  as 
The  World  is  frequently  asked  to  ex¬ 
plain  what  really  did  happen  and  how  it 
was  done,  it  will  state  again  the  essen¬ 
tial  and  indisputable  facts: 

. 

1.  Silver  dollars  had  demonetized 
themselves  long  before  1873.  Only 
$6,591  721  had  been  coined  by  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  in  the  eighty-one  years  of  its 
existence  up  to  that  time.  For  twenty 
years  and  more  they  had  been  worth 
more  than  the  gold  dollar,  and  so 
did  not  circulate  as  money.  Not  even 
the  most  silvery-haired  of  the  advocates 
of  “the  dollar  of  the  daddies”  ever  saw 
%  a  silver  dollar  up  to  1878,  except  as  a 
curiosity.  Dr.  Linderman,  formerly 
Director  of  the  Mint,  in  recommending 
the  daw  passed  in  1873,  said:  “Having 


a  higher  value  as  bullion  than  its  nominal 
value,  the  silver  dollar  long  ago  ceased 
to  be  a  coin  of  circulation,  and  being  of 
no  practical  use  whatever,  its  issue 
should  be  discontinued.” 

2.  The  Coinage  act  of  1873  was  pre¬ 
pared  in  the  Treasury  Department  in 
1869-70  by  John  J.  Knox,  then  deputy 
Comptroller  of  the  Currency  It  was 
transmitted  to  Congress  and  its  passage 
recommended  by  Secretary  Boutweil, 
who  said  that  “there  has  been  no  re¬ 
vision  of  the  laws  pertaining  to  mint 
and  coinage  since  1837,”  and  that  such 
a  revision  was  much  needed.  The  bill 
was  submitted  to  and  received  the  j  udg- 
ment  of  more  than  thirty  experts  on 
coinage  and  currency.  It  related  only 
incidentally  to  the  silver  dollar,  but 
revised  and  codified  all  the  coinage 
laws  of  the  nation.  Prominently  in  the 
list  of  “proposed  amendments”  was  this: 
“Discontinuance  of  the  coinage  of  the 
silver  dollar.”  Another  capital  head¬ 
line  read:  “Silver  dollar,  half  dime  and 
three  cent  piece  discontinued.”  The 
dropping  of  this  then  useless  coin  was 
also  mentioned  in  the  tables  and  foot¬ 
notes  of  the  report.  There  was  no 
motive  for  concealing  it  and  no  thought 
of  concealing  it.  The  silver  dollar  was 
then  worth  nearly  $1.04  in  gold.  The 
mine-owners  had  no  desire  for  free  coin¬ 
age.  Their  bullion  was  worth  more  iu 
the  market  than  at  the  mint. 

3.  In  the  discussion  of  the  bill  in  both 
houses  of  Congress  the  fact  of  the  omis¬ 
sion  and  the  reason  for  it  were  plainly 
stated.  They  were  mentioned  and  en¬ 
forced  by  Representatives  Kelley, 
Hooper,  Potter,  McNeely  and  Stough¬ 
ton,  and  agreed  to  by  Senators  Sherman, 
Scott  and  Bayard.  Representative 
Kelley,  Chairman  of  the  House  com¬ 
mittee,  said : 


“It  has  received  as  careful  attention 
as  I  have  ever  known  a  committee  to 
bestow  on  any  bill.  W e  proceeded  with 
great  deliberation  to  go  over  the  bill,  not 
only  section  by  section,  but  line  by  line 
and  word  for  word.”  The  bill  failed  for 
want  of  time  in  the  Forty-first  Congress, 
but  was  again  considered  in  the  Forty- 
second  and  passed  the  house  by  a  vote  of 
110  to  13.  All  the  Pacific  coast  mem¬ 
bers  voted  for  it.  After  consideration 
by  a  conference  committee  it  was  agreed 
to  by  both  houses  Feb.  12,  1873. 

And  this  open,  regular,  long-consid¬ 
ered  and  well-understood  discontinuance 
of  the  coinage  of  a  non-circulated  silver 
dollar,  together  with  the  half-dime  and 
three-cent  piece,  was  the  terrible  ‘  ‘crime 
of  1873.” — From  the  New  York  World, 
Aug.  7, 1896. 


A  Workingman’s  Questions. 


W.  L.  Timberlake,  a  conductor  on  the 
Mobile  (Ala.,)-  street  railway,  addressed 
these  queries,  through  the  Mobile  Regis¬ 
ter,  to  the  gentlemen  announced '  as 
speakers  at  a  Byran  ratification  meeting 
•  held  in  that  city  Saturday  night  last: 

(1.)  Will  the  free  coinage  of  silver  at 
a  ratio  of  16  to  1  increase  the  rate  of 
wages  now  paid  the  workingmen  in 
the  United  States?  If  you  say  it  will, 
please  name  me  some  free-coinage  coun¬ 
try  in  which  the  workingmen  are  paid 
wages  as  high  as  they  now  receive  in  the 
United  States. 

(2.)  We  are  not  hnly  interested  in  the 
rate  of  wages,  but  also  in  the  purchasing 


power  of  the  money  in  which  wages 
are  paid.  Is  there  a  free  coinage  coun¬ 
try  in  the  world  where  a  yorkingman  can 
buy  as  much  for  a  dollar  as  he  can  now 
in  the  United  States  ? 

(3.)  Mr.  Bryan  and  other  advocates  of 
free  coinage  claim  that  it  will  increase 
the  price  of  all  commodities.  If  it  should 
increase  the  price  of  the  things  which 
the  workingman  has  to  buy  and  does  not 
correspondingly  increase  his  wages,  will 
he  not  be  most  seriously  affected  by  the 
change  ? 

(4.)  Is  it  true  that  between  1860  and 
1865,  when  the  currency  was  inflated 
with  paper,  the  price  of  all  commodities 
rose  116  per  cent.,  while  wages  only  rose 
43  per  cent.  ? 

(5.)  If  wages  only  increased  about  one- 
third  as  much  as  the  price  of  things  for 
which  wages  had  to  be  exchanged  be¬ 
tween  1860  and  1865,  when  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  laborers  were  in  the  field 
as  soldiers,  do  you  believe  wages  would 
increase  so  much  under  conditions  that 
would  follow  Mr.  Bryan’s  election? 

(6.)  The  railroads  of  the  country  de¬ 
rive  their  incomes  exclusively  from 
freight  and  passenger  tariffs  that  are 
practically  fixed  by  laws  enforced  by 
state  and  interstate  commissions.  If 
free  coinage  increases  the  price  of  all 
the  commodities  necessary  to  the  opera¬ 
tion  of  railroads,  and  their  income  is 
kept  down  by  law,  can  the  large  body  of 
men  employed  m  the  service  hope  for  an 
increase  of  wages?  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
would  not  a  cut  in  wages  be  about  the 
only  way  in  which  the  railroads  could 
meet  the  increased  cost  of  operation?  fh, 

(7.)  The  street  railway  systems  of  the  - 
city  are  operated  under  municipal  ordi- 

L  'v  * 

/  . 


/ 


10 


l 


nances  which  fix  their  incomes  at  5  cents 
per  passenger  carried.  If  Mr.  Bryan  is 
right  in  saying  free  coinage  will 
increase  prices  of  all  commodities 
used  by  street  railways,  can  you  advise 
the  conductors,  motormen,  and  other 
street  railway  employees  of  this  city  to 
vote  for  free  coinage  with  the  hope  of  im¬ 
proving  their  condition  ? 

(8.)  As  I  understand  it,  your  party  has 
*  for  years  made  war  on  a  protective 
tariff  because  it  increased  the  cost  of 
the  necessaries  of  life.  If  Mr.  Bryan  is 
right,  will  not  free  coinage  in  this  respect 
be  just  as  bad?  Will  it  not  also  create 
a  gigantic  trust  and  make  a  market  by 
law  for  the  property  of  the  silver-mine 
owner  at  double  its  value  ? 

(9  )  Is  it  true  that  on  the  Santa  Fe 
Railroad,  operated  partly  in  the  United 
States  and  partly  in  Mexico,  the  laborer 
on  the  American  side  receives  an  Amer¬ 
ican  silver  dollar,  while  just  across  the 
imaginary  line,  on  the  Mexican  side,  the 
paymaster  with  the  American  silver  dol¬ 
lar  buys  two  Mexican  silver  dollars  with 
which  he  pays  for  two  days’  work? 

(10.)  Why  is  it  that  371|-  grains  of 
silver  with  the  stamp  of  gold  standard 
America  on  it  will  buy  754  grains  of  sil¬ 
ver  with  the  stamp  of  silver-standard 
Mexico  on  it? 

(11.)  If  you  say  it  is  because  the  silver 
dollar  in  America  is  maintained  at  par 
with  gold  by  the  government,  when  the 
credit  of  the  government  is  removed  by 
free  coinage,  and  silver  stands  on  its 
v  merits,  will  not  the  American  silver  dol- 
jref  lar  sink  to  the  value  of  the  Mexican 
dollar,  and  will  not  the  American  work- 
*  ingman  who  receives  it  be  put  upon  the 
low  level  of  the  Mexican  laborer? 

■  #  B  " 


(12.)  Mr.  Bryan  says  that  gold  has 
appreciated,  that  under  the  gold  standard 
the  gold  dollar  has  grown  in  value  from 
100  to  200  cents.  Wages  in  this  country 
are  paid  in  gold  or  the  equivalent.  The 
rate  of  wages  has  risen  since  1873.  If 
the  American  workingman  receives  as 
many  dollars  for  a  day’s  work  now  as  he 
did  prior  to  1873,  and  these  dollars  have 
grown  in  value  from  100  to  200  cents,  do 
you  not  think  he  would  be  unwise  to 
swap  it  for  a  dollar  that  Mr.  Bryan  frank¬ 
ly  tells  him  would  be  worth  only  half  as 
much? 

(13.)  Will  the  workingman,  under  free 
coinage,  have  to  work  as  hard  and  as 
many  hours  for  a  dollar  as  he  does  now  ? 

Upon  your  answers  to  the  foregoing 
questions  depends  the  vote  of  myself  and 
a  large  number  of  workingmen  of  this 
community  who  have  made  up  their  minds 
that  the  interest  of  themselves  and  their 
families  is  superior  to  any  question  of  al¬ 
legiance  to  party. — From  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  Sept.  5th,  1896. 


Little  Rock,  Ark.,  July  30. 

A  statement  was  widely  published  by 
the  press  a  few  days  ago  that  President 
G.  L.  Green  of  the  Connecticut  Life  In¬ 
surance  Company  of  Hartford  and  the 
heads  of  other  life  insurance  companies 
had  issued  circular  letter  to  policy¬ 
holders  notifying  them  that  in  the  event 
that  the  Government  adopts  the  free 
coinage  of  silver  the  company  would  be 
compelled  to  pay  all  claims  in  depre¬ 
ciated  silver  coin. 

F.  W.  Alsop,  of  this  city,  sent  a  clip- 


11 


ping  of  this  statement  to  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  Carlisle,  with  a  request  for 
an  expression  on  the  subject  He  has 
received  a  reply  from  Mr.  Carlisle,  which 
is  in  part  as  follows : 

'  ‘  In  case  free  coinage  of  silver  should 
be  established  in  this  country,  I  pre¬ 
sume  insurance  companies  and  all  other 
institutions  would  continue  to  make  their 
payments  by  checks  and  drafts  on  banks 
as  heretofore;  in  my  opinion  the  whole 
volume  of  our  currency  would  sink  at 
once  to  the  silver  basis,  and  these  checks 
and  drafts  would  be  paid  in  silver  dollars 
or  their  equivalent  instead  of  gold  or  its 
equivalent,  as  is  now  the  case. 

“I  presume  no  one  supposes  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  that  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the 
Government  to  attempt  to  keep  the 
standard  silver  dollar  coined  free  for 
private  individuals  and  corporations 
equal  in  value  to  a  gold  dollar — or,  in 
other  words,  that  it  would  be  the  duty 
of  the  Government  to  attempt  under  a 
system  of  free  coinage  to  maintain  the 
parity  of  the  two  metals. 

“The  dollars  would  be  coined  on  pri¬ 
vate  account  and  delivered  to  private  in¬ 
dividuals  and  corporations  as  their  own 
property,  the  Government  having  no  in¬ 
terest  whatever  in  them,  and  being, 
therefore,  under  no  obligation  to  sustain 
them  by  guaranteeing  their  value. 

“Under  our  existing  system  all  silver 
dollars  are  coined  on  account  of  the 
Government,  and  are  issued  by  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  in  payment  of  its  expenditures 
and  other  obligations,  and  it  would  be 
an  act  of  bad  faith,  therefore,  to  permit 
them  to  depreciate . 

“  Very  truly  yours, 

“  J.  G.  CARLISLE.” 

— From  the  New  York  World ,  July  3 1st, 
1896. 


CERNUSCHI'S  CONFESSION. 


The  Great  Silver  Champion’s 
Views  upon  America’s  Ad¬ 
option  of  Free  Silver. 


To  the  Editor,  of  the  Sun — Sir:  Mr. 
Bryan  and  his  followers  on  the  currency 
question,  in  setting  up  the  16  to  1  pro¬ 
paganda,  claim  to  be  bimetallists;  in 
other  words,  they  claim  that  under  a 
free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver  by 
the  United  States  at  a  ratio  of  16  to  1 
gold  and  silver  will  circulate  side  by 
side  in  our  currency,  that  gold  will  not 
be  expelled,  that  we  will  not  go  to  a 
silver  monometallic  basis,  but  that  the 
commercial  ratio  between  gold  and  silver 
bullion — now  about  30  to  1 — will  become 
identical  with  the  16  to  1  coinage  ratio. 

Mr.  Bryan  has  declared  himself  in  sev¬ 
eral  recent  speeches  a“  bimetallist”  on 
this  basis. 

Much  has  been  made  of  the  supposed 
support  of  the  European  bimetallists. 
Chief  among  these,  both  in  written  and 
spoken  argument,  has  been  Mr.  Cemuschi 
of  Paris.  So  eminent  has  been  his  pos¬ 
ition  on  this  question  of  bimetallism  that 
he  was  called  upon  for  his  testimony  by 
the  Congressional  Commission  on  the 
silver  question,  whose  report®  was  pub¬ 
lished  in  1877  under  the  title  of  “Nom- 
isma  or  Legal  Tender.”  No  more 
thoroughgoing  “friend  of  silver,”  nor 
one  with  wider  knowledge  of  the  history 
and  theory  of  coinages  and  currencies, 
has  anywhere  appeared.  He  has  liter¬ 
ally  been  a  text  book  for  silver  advocates  U 
the  world  over.  His  “friendliness” 
being  known  and  conceded,  therefore,  f 
his  testimony  should  surely  bear  weight 


12 


I 


with  those  who  claim  to  be  bimetallists 
— not  silver  monometallists. 

The^  following  letter  Mr.  Cernuschi 
wrote  Trom  Paris  to  his  friend,  Mr.  B. 
F.  Nourse  of  Boston,  during  the  agita¬ 
tion  at  the  time  of  the  introduction  of  the 
■a  Bland  Free  Coinage  act  in  1878  and  the 
subsequent  substitution  of  the  Bland  - 
Allison  Silver  Purchase  act.  The  Bland 
bill,  of  course,  was  a  16  to  1  free  coinage 
act,  exactly  similar  to  the  Bryan  plat- 
31  form  proposition. 

'  / 

Here  is  the  letter : 

“It  appears  that  the  United  States 
Government  has  made  some  engage¬ 
ment  with  the  syndicate  of  the  four  per 
cents,  and  possibly  the  President  will 
veto  a  bill  reopening  the  Mint  to  the  free 
coinage  of  silver.  But  let  us  suppose 
that  the  Congress  resists  the  veto,  and 
that  the  old  silver  dollar  is  inhabilitated 
in  full.  What  the  consequences  ? 

All  the  new  silver  of  Nevada  and  the 
old  silver  of  Germany  would  be  brought 
to  the  American  Mint  for  coinage,  and 
all  gold  would  be  exported  from  America 
to  Europe.  Against  this  assertion  the 
Cincinnati  Commercial  quotes  France, 
where  silver  and  gold  circulate  side  by 
side,  and  from  where  silver  is  not  ex¬ 
ported.  That  is  true  but  why  is  gold 
not  exported  from  France  ?  Because 
silver  is  not  coined,  and  consequently  no 
silver  is  introduced  in  France.  Should 
France  reopen  her  mint  to  silver  she 
would  absorb  the  American  and  German 
silver  and  lose  her  gold.  But  with  the 
United  States  coining  silver  at  the  ratio 
16,  France  cannot  reopen  her  mint  for 
coining  five-franc  pieces,  which  are  at 
the  ratio  15 and  then  the  United 
States  will  sell  at  a  premium  all  her 
.  'I  gold  dollars  against  silver .  In  fact  the 
United  States  will  become  a  silver  mon- 
*  ometallic  country,  just  the  same  as 
English  India. 


‘  ‘  Here  it  is  asked  what  will  then  be 
the  relative  value  of  gold  and  silver  on 
the  general  market,  especially  London? 
1  answer,  always  fluctuating.  While 
America  has  gold  to  give  in  exchange  for 
silver,  the  value  of  silver  can  be  high. 
When  the  American  gold  shall  be  ex¬ 
hausted  the  value  of  silver  will  be  weak. 
Various  foreseen  and  unforeseen  circum¬ 
stances  will  later  determine  continuous 
changes  in  the  respective  value  of  gold 
and  silver.  Without  a  bimetallic  law 
fixing  the  same  legal  ratio  in  the  principal 
countries,  the  relative  value  of  gold  and 
silver  cannot  be  more  stable  than  the 
relative  value  of  sugar  and  coffee.” 

This  statement,  directly  to  the  point, 
from  a  genuine  bimetallist,  not  a  silver 
monometallist  in  disguise,  is  a  deadly 
blow  to  the  proposition  that  the  free 
coinage  of  silver  at  the  false  ratio  of  16 
to  1,  false,  because  it  is  not  the  market 
ratio,  can  establish  bimetallism  in  the 
United  States.  An  international  agree¬ 
ment  would  have  an  almost  impossible 
task  upon  its  shoulders,  because  running' 
counter  to  world- wide  commercial  prices. 
How  can  one  country  carry  the  load  ? 

The  metal  undervalued  in  an  unlimited 
coinage  invariably  disappears  from  cir¬ 
culation  as  coin  or  a  basis  of  currency 
values.  Why?  Because  when  under¬ 
valued  as  coin  in  an  unlimited  coinage, 
it  nevertheless  retains  its  value  as  bul¬ 
lion,  and  naturally  flows  to  the  market 
wheXe  it  is  not  undervalued.  This  law, 
known  as  Gresham’s  law,  applies  both  to 
gold  and  silver,  and  has  had  many  exem¬ 
plifications  in  the  coinage  of  nearly  all 
civilized  nations. 

The  1 6  to  1  proposition  means  silver  mono¬ 
metallism,  pure  and  simple,  and  cannot 
possibly  mean  anything  else  unless  all 
experience  belies  itself.  Our  going  to 
that  basis  involves  the  scaling  down  of 
at  least  one-half  of  all  our  values  creat¬ 
ed  upon  a  gold  basis,  and,  worst  of  all, 


the  repudiation  of  one-half  of  the  obliga¬ 
tions  assumed  by  us  nationally  and  indi¬ 
vidually.  The  repayment,  whether  to 
Europe  or  among  ourselves,  with  a  fifty 
cent  dollar  of  invested  values  worth  gold 
when  placed  in  our  hands,  can  justly 
have  no  other  name  than  robbery,  and 
legislative  enactment  can  in  no  wise 
change  the  true  character  of  the  act. 

JOHN  J.  ROONEY, 

66  Beaver  Street,  New  York. 

— From  the  New  York  Sun. 


The  Workingman’s  Dollar. 


The  workingmen  do  not  want-  a  de¬ 
preciated  orja  dishonest  dollar.  The 
great  majority  of  the  letters  to  The 
World  on  this  subject  prove  this.  They 
favor  an  increase  in  the  volume  of  cur¬ 
rency,  ignoring  or  disbelieving  the  fact 
established  by  the  history  of  our  own  and 
every  other  country — that  the  cheaper 
money  will  drive  the  betteiynoney  out  of 
circulation,  and  hence  that  free  coinage 
would  deprive  us  of  over  $500,000,000 
in  gold  and  gold  certificates  now  in  use 
as  money. 

Not  only  has  free  coinage  at  the  ratio 
of  16  to  1  never  given  us  gold  and  silver 
money  at  a  parity,  but  the  two  metals 
have  never  circulated  upon  equal  terms  as 
full  legal-tender  money  with  free  and 
unlimited  coinage .  So  much  is  history, 
not  theory. 

But  the  workingmen  catch  at  the  mine 
owners’  claim  that  free  coinage  will  at 
once  raise  silver  to  $1.29  an  ounce,  and 
thus  make  the  standard  dollars  “as  good 


as  gold.”  Again  we  cite  to  them  the 
facts  of  experience. 

Under  the  Bland- Allison  act  of  1878 
the  Government  purchased  from  $2,000,- 
000  to  $4,000,000  worth  of  silver  bullion 
per  month  for  coinage  into  full  legal- 
tender  silver  dollars  Up  to  1891,  when 
this  law  was  superseded  by  the  Sherman 
act,  the  Government  had  purchased 
291,272,018  ounces  of  fine  silver.  It 
coined  during  this  time  over  400,000,000 
standard  dollars.  The  total  production 
of  our  mines  during  this  period  was 
about  450,000,000  ounces.  The  exports 
amounted  in  value  to  about  $200,000,000. 
So  that,  with  the  amount  used  in  the 
arts,  all  the  available  silver  product  of 
the  country  was  marketed  to  the  Gov¬ 
ernment. 

Did  this  sustain  the  price?  When  the 
purchases  began  the  bullion  value  of 
371£  grains  of  pure  silver  was  89  cents. 
When  they  ceased  it  was  76  cents. 

The  next  attempt  to  sustain  the  price 
of  silver  at  the  expense  of  the  people 
was  by  the  Sherman  act  of  1890.  Under 
this  the  Government  was  compelled  to 
buy  4,500,000  ounces  of  silver  per  month 
and  issue  Treasury  notes  therefor,  to 
“make  money  plenty”  and  supply  a  mar¬ 
ket  to  the  mine-owners  who  are  to-day 
busy  at  the  Populist  Convention.  Up 
to  the  repeal  of  this  disastrous  law  in 
1893  the  Government  had  purchased 
168,674,682  ounces  of  silver — practically 
all  the  bullion  not  required  for  export  or 
for  the  arts.  The  bulk  of  it  is  stored 
now  in  the  Treasury  vaults  awaiting  the 
slow  call  for  coinage  to  redeem  the 
Treasury  notes  standing  against  it. 

When  these  purchases  began  the  bul¬ 
lion  value  of  371J  grains  of  silver  was  80 
cents'  In  1891  it  had  fallen  to  76,  in 
'1892  to  67,  in  1893  to  60,  in  1894  tjo  49,  y 
in  1895  to  50.  The  Treasury  notes  ifesued 
during  this  period  added  to  the  currency 
quite  as  fast  as  the  mints  could  turn  out  * 


silver  dollars  under  free  coinage,  and 
had  the  advantage  of  being  redeemed  in 
/  gold  or  silver.  Yet  silver  still  went 
down,  money  became  “scarce”  (escept 
in  the  banks),  and  a  monetary  panic 
followed. 

The  workingmen  may  not  be  versed  in 
monetary  science,  but  they  are  able  to 
understand  the  lessons  of  history  and  the 
'  teachings  of  actual,  practical  and  recent 
experience.  If  they  profit  by  them  they 
will  stand  firm  for  the  best  money. — 
From  the  New  York  World. 

HEjf'  ,v 

| 

- - 


The  First  Fruits  of  Free  Silver. 

r 

I  _ 


There  is  another  stronger  and  more 
logical  reason  why  the  support  of  free 
silver  in  the  pending  campaign  will  be 
disastrous  to  wage  earners.  Should  free 
silver  prevail  at  the  November  polls  the 
contest  will  be  continued  in  the  Sen¬ 
ate,  and  under  no  circumstances  could 
that  body  pass  a  free  coinage  bill  under 
two  years,  or  until  a  radical  change  has 
been  made  in  its  organization.  During 
that  time  the  new  Administration  would 
find  itself  without  money.  A  financial 
panic  would  have  ravaged  our  business 
interests,  and  millions  of  working 
people  would  be  thrown  out  of  employ¬ 
ment  and  be  without  homes  or  means 
to  support  their  families.  This  is  no  idle 
prophecy,  but  is  a  statement  of  the  actual 
experience  of  every  country  that  has  in 
modern  times  attempted  to  adopt  a  de- 
,'j  based  monetary  standard,  and,  in  view 
'  of  the  already  depressed  conditions  of 
.  working  people,  is  it  right  to  force  them 
'  5  to  njiake  such  a  sacrifice  ? 


On  the  other  hand,  there  is  good  rea¬ 
son  to  believe  that  a  defeat  of  free  silver 
will  start  up  the  wheels  of  commerce  and 
give  increased  employment  to  wage- 
earners.  With  an  improved  trade  our 
revenues  would  be  sufficient  to  obviate 
the  necessity  of  further  bond  issues,  and 
the  money  question  would  soon  settle 
itself.  That  out  of  the  way,  organized 
labor  could  then  devote  its  efforts  to  the 
further  amelioration  of  objectionable  con¬ 
ditions,  and  for  that  reason  certain  labor 
leaders  should  cease  their  attempts  to 
mislead  their  followers. — From  the  Wash¬ 
ington  Times. 


Andrew  Carnegie  in  the  North 
American  Review. 


But  1  am  now  to  tell  you  another  qual¬ 
ity  which  this  basis-article  of  metal  has 
proved  itself  to  possess,  which  you  will 
find  it  very  difficult  to  believe.  The 
whole  world  has  such  confidence  in  its 
fixity  of  value  that  there  has  been  built 
upon  it,  as  upon  a  sure  foundation,  a 
tower  of  “credit”  so  high,  so  vast,  that 
all  the  silver  and  gold  in  the  United 
States,  and  all  the  greenbacks  and  notes 
issued  by  the  government,  only  perform 
8  per  cent  of  the  exchanges  of  the  coun¬ 
try  Go  into  any  bank,  trust  company, 
mill,  factory,  store,  or. place  of  business, 
and  you  will  find  that  for  every  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  of  business 
transacted,  only  about  eight  thousand 
dollars  of  *  ‘money”  is  used,  and  this  only 
for  petty  purchases  and  payments. 
Ninety-two  per  cent,  of  the  business  is 
done  with  little  bits  of  paper — checks, 
drafts.  Upon  this  basis  also  rest  all 
the  government  bonds,  all  State,  county, 


15 


and  city  bonds,  and  the  thousands  of 
millions*  of  bonds  the  sale  of  which  has 
enabled  our  great  railway  systems  to  be 
built,  and  also  the  thousands  of  millions 
of  the  earnings  of  the  masses  deposited 
in  savings-banks,  which  have  been  lent 
by  these  banks  to  various  parties,  and 
which  must  be  returned  in  “good  money” 
or  the  poor  depositor’s  savings  will  be 
partially  or  wholly  lost. 

The  business  and  exchanges  of  the 
country,  therefore,  are  not  done  now 
with  “money” — with  the  article  itself. 
Just  as  in  former  days  the  articles  them¬ 
selves  ceased  to  be  exchanged,  and  a 
metal  called  “money”  was  used  to  effect 
the  exchanges,  so  to-day  the  metal  itself 
—the  “money” — is  no  longer  used.  The 
check  or  draft  of  the  buyer  of  articles 
upon  a  store  of  gold  deposited  in  a  bank 
— a  little  bit  of  paper — is  all  that  passes 
between  the  buyer  and  the  seller.  Why 
is  this  bit  of  paper  taken  by  the  seller  or 
the  one  to  whom  their  is  a  debt  due? 
Because  the  taker  is  confident  that  if  he 
really  needed  the  article  itself  that  it 
calls  for — the  gold — he  could  get  it.  He 
is  confident  also  that  he  will  not  need 
the  article  itself,  and  why  ?  Because  for 
what  he  wishes  to  buy  the  seller  or  any 
man  whom  he  owes  will  take  his  check, 
a  similar  little  bit  of  paper,  instead  of 
gold  itself;  and  then,  most  vital  of  all, 
every  one  is  confident  that  the  basis- 
article  cannot  change  in  value.  For  re¬ 
member  it  would  be  almost  as  bad  if  it 
rose  in  value  as  if  it  fell;  steadiness  of 
value  being  one.  essential  quality  in 
“money”  for  the  masses  of  the  people. 

‘£When,  therefore,  people  clamor  for 
more  “money”  to  put  in  circulation, — 
that  is,  for  more  of  the  article  which  we 
use  to  effect  an  exchange  of  articles, — you 
see  that  more  *  ‘money”  is  not  so  much 
what  is  needed.  Nobody  who  has  had 
wheat  or  tobacco  or  any  article  to  sell 


has  ever  found  any  trouble  for  want  of 
“money”  in  the  hands  of  the  buyer  to 
effect  the  exchange.  We  had  a  very 
severe  financial  disturbance  in  this  coun¬ 
try  only  three  months  ago.  “Money,”  it 
was  said,  could  not  be  had  for  business 
purposes ;  but  it  was  not  the  metal  itself 
that  was  lacking,  but  “credit, ’’confidence, 
for  upon  that,  as  you  have  seen,  all 
business  is  done  except  small  pur¬ 
chases  and  payments  which  can 
scarcely  be  called  “  business”  at  all. 
To-day  the  business  man  cannot  walk  the 
street  without  being  approached  by  peo¬ 
ple  begging  him  to  take  this  “  credit^’  at 
very  low  rates  of  interest:  at  2  per  cent, 
er  annum  ‘  ‘  money  ”  (credit)  can  be  had 
ay  by  day .  There  has  been  no  consid¬ 
erable  difference  in  the  amount  of  ‘  ‘  mo¬ 
ney”  in  existence  during  the  ninety 
days.  There  was  about  as  much  money 
in  the  country  in  January  as  there  is 
in  March.  It  was  not  the  want  of 
money,  then,  that  caused  the  trouble. 
The  foundation  had  been  shaken  upon 
which  stood  the  ninety-two  thousand  dol¬ 
lars  of  every  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
of  business.  The  metal  itself  and  notes — 
real  “money,”  as  we  have  seen — only 
apply  to  the  eight  thousand  dollars. 
Here  comes  the  gravest  of  all  dangers  in 
tampering  with  the  basis.  You  shake 
directly  the  foundation  upon  which  rests 
92  per  cent  of  all  the  business  exchanges 
of  the  country, — confidence,  credit,' — 
and  indirectly  the  trifling  8  per  cent, 
as  well  which  is  transacted  by  the  ex¬ 
change  of  the  metal  itself  or  by  govern¬ 
ment  notes ;  for  the  standard  article  is 
the  foundation  for  every  exchange,  laoth 
the  ninety-two  thousand  dollars  and  the 
eight  thousand  dollars.  So,  you  seje,  if 
that  be  undermined,  the  vast  structure, 
comprising  all  business,  built  upoiji  it,  V 
must  totter. 

f 


16 


THE 


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which  has  achieved  a  reputation  for  the 
Mason  &  Hamlin  Organ 
as  the 

STANDARD  OF  THE  WORLD 

tcA* 

HIGHEST  HONORS 

At  all  Great  World's  Expositions  wherever  exhibited 
since  and  including  that  of  Paris,  1867 . 

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